Re: "DreadPlanet"

> Not to go into any particular universe here, but it seems to be fairly
> well accepted that a single large ship isn't really a viable long
> term strategy.

I wasn't terribly claiming that it was myself.	The Dreadplanet Roberts
class
vessel(s) is(are) owned by a starfaring race that has access to a number
of
other ship types ranging from fast cloaking escorts (skirmishers in
their
own way), fast armored needle battlecruisers, and a large fleet of
conventional
sized (or a little larger) dreadnoughts and carriers.  The DPR itself is
fairly
rarely seen.

> Needle Beams reduce the  large ship to a hulk
> on a ballistic path.

This works better with huge battleships than it does with huge carriers,
in
my experience.	I've done this to huge battleships, but the fighters
typically
prevent it from happening to a huge carrier.  Of course, there's a
number of
background assumptions involved here as well.

> A small force can take out a _much_ larger
> (by NPV) force  with this tactic.  The trick is to make your 
> larger ships be small enough that the disadvantages of the needle
> beam outweigh the advantages.  I personally think a BDN is about
> the biggest ship that fits these criteria, although I have been
> known to play with an FSE SDN just so I can use my miniature.

Depends on the scale you're working with.  If you're playing with
relatively
small task forces then yeah, that's about the case... but if you're
playing
with a bit more scale (in our range) then you're probably giving up more
in
the low-threshold department by keeping your ships below BDN size than
you
would be in making them more vulnerable to needle beams by making them
larger.
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 The Stilt Man		      stiltman@teleport.com
   http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/stiltman.html
   < We are Microsoft Borg '98.  Lower your expectations and	>
   < surrender your money.  Antitrust law is irrelevant.	>
   < Competition is irrelevant.  We will add your financial and >
   < technological distinctiveness to our own.	Your software	>
   < will adapt to service ours.  Resistance is futile. 	>